


Fathers and Winter Coats

by PrimeWoman



Category: West Wing
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 02:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrimeWoman/pseuds/PrimeWoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A kind of post-ep to Third Day Story with pre-admin flashbacks. Examining the relationship between CJ and Bartlet. Mention of most other major characters.</p>
<p>This is my first West Wing fic and I haven't written much other fic either so any advice is welcome. I write in a rush and don't proof read well so apologies for any slips of grammar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fathers and Winter Coats

**“Fathers and Winter Coats.”**

There are associations in her life; sounds and noises and words and feelings and smells and touches that lead her back to places and people. Josh is the blue of the party and sometimes (still, somehow, after all this time) the red of blood on pavement, he’s warmth too, mi amor. Sam was the ache in your cheeks from smiling too wide, and long Christmas cards that say too much and read too well… but now he’s her cell phone shoved against her ear and the feeling of never having enough time to say ‘I miss you’. Donna is her perfume, shared when CJ forgets, and the familiar ache she gets watching Donna watching Josh, she’s frozen yogurt and honesty. Leo is the strong hand on her lower back guiding her into her first press briefing, and something that reminds her of the fear of showing her father her latest crappy math test, he’s paper thin pastrami and tailored suits and she’s terrified that now he’s going to be the sound of heart monitors for the rest of her life, of his life.

And then there’s the President. The President is the dizziness of first stepping into that round room, and the sound of warm laughter and a useless fact and Duty and Loyalty and Love. And he’s Fear. And fear is somehow a dull buzzing noise she first heard in a New Hampshire Governor’s House when he said the words:   
“I need you to be White House Press Secretary, CJ. And I need you to be the best. I need you to be the best to serve the country and to help me serve the country but also because you’re a woman and you’re from California so a lot of people are going to think you can’t do this. I want you to know that not one of those people will be working in that building.”   
The dull, buzzing noise blocks most of that out. Toby fills her in on the details later; he’s leaning against the door, a smile underneath his beard as he watches her, this woman who can field 17 questions at a time from an unruly press core, not processing what the man before her is saying.   
“I’m from Ohio,” is her reply because isn’t sure what else to say. Toby laughs and the President waits. “I mean, I’ve worked in California for a while now. But my I was born in Ohio, not California. So I don’t know if you could say I’m from California… sir.”   
“Okay, well, okay you’re from Ohio. Less of a problem than California, but still no New Hampshire.” CJ watches the President look at Toby and feels them laughing at her (she have heard it but that buzzing is so damn loud), but it’s the good kind of laughing at her. One that’s something to do with her throwing a basketball through a window and falling into pools. She fell into a pool in California, but California is warmth and sun (and lack of ambition and her father tutting down the phone. What’s worse the tutting of the buzzing?)   
“New Hampshire is cold.” is what she’s saying.   
“So is Washington, CJ.” Toby offers from the side. “  
Washington…”   
“Yeah, it’s this swell little city I know. I was thinking about setting up an office there sometime soon. I was actually in the middle of asking you to join me in this little venture of mine.” And the President does that thing he does when he thinks he’s being clever, opening his arms wide before clapping his hands together. Maybe it’s the clap that stops the buzzing noise.   
“You’re naming me actual Press Secretary? Not just transition? Actual White House Press Secretary? To work in the White House? In Washington?”   
“In Washington, where it’s cold.” She doesn’t look at Toby. She needs to focus. The President is being remarkably patient. “Well I will be. Once you actually take the job. And only on the promise that you’ll be the best, and that you’ll stop complaining about the weather.”   
“I can buy a coat.” And then it’s a handshake and a kiss on the cheek that becomes a hug and a look in this great man’s eyes. A look that might be pride. And then Toby guiding her out and coughing. She thinks he might kiss her because he has that look, but they’re at the office, so instead he places a hand on her arm. He murmurs “I’ll come with you, to uh, buy your coat.” because it’s how he says ‘I think you’re going to be incredible.’ But there’s a buzzing again and Toby isn’t here.

But she’s here, sat in the limo driving away from the hospital with the President. The President: love, duty, New Hampshire maple syrup, this mischievous look in her eye Abbey gets, Latin, Fear. And now: jumping off a cliff.   
The buzzing noise is back.   
“I’m sorry sir, what did you say?” They’re sat opposite each other which is silly considering how long her legs are but his are shorter so they only just meet occasionally, when the limo jerks. She’s staring at his knees and her knees and the way they knock. She should probably not be staring at her knees now.   
“I want to name you as my new Chief of Staff.” When she does look up, he’s looking straight at her. (Easier to do when she’s sat down. Why does she feel so tall, right at this second?)   
“You mean Toby.”   
“No.” The buzzing gets louder.   
“Josh?”   
“No.” There’s the buzzing and she’s much too tall to ride in this limo and suddenly her voice is cracking.   
“Will?”   
“Will? No. Claudia Jean. You. I want you.” There’s amusement in his voice, she’s sure. Him and Toby, laughing at her going on about the weather. Him clapping and the buzzing dying. But it’s still there now, which is good because she hasn’t said anything for 11 seconds and if not for the buzzing in her ears, there would just be silence. She should probably say something. Her hands flutter to her hair while she tries to find something to say other than ‘DC is cold’.   
“Greg Brock, he asked me today who was going to be Chief of staff. I mean he asked me when Leo was, god, when Leo was still on the table.” (The sound of heart monitors.) “And he asked if it was going to be Josh or Toby or Will. He never asked if it was going to be me.”   
And now he’s rolling his eyes at her. She wonders if he ever gets tired of feigning exasperation with the people he loves. “Well, that’s my mind changed. If Greg Brock didn’t consider you then it doesn’t matter that you’re the only person Leo would suggest.”   
“Leo wants me?” No buzzing, Californian sunshine, wet clingy clothes, Toby’s unaverted gaze, ‘McCarry wants me?’. Her mouth is open a little, and her brow furrowed a little and she’s a picture of surprise and suspicion and honor all over again.   
“When did Leo get more impressive than me?” He’s saying to himself when she cuts over with the first bit of sense spoken so far, or so she feels.   
“I have nowhere near enough experience to do this, Sir.”   
He leans forward and almost whispers; “You’ve got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.” And it’s almost like a challenge because he knows she just can’t resist one of those. They’re smiling at each other for just a moment, and she’s a second away from ‘I serve at the pleasure of the President’ but then, doubt. Not self-doubt. Not the ‘can I do this’ of Californian CJ. It’s ‘will you let me’.   
“There is nothing I wouldn’t do for this country, sir. And I think you know, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. But I, I need to… can I have some time to…” He regards her for a moment; she wonders if he’s disappointed at this hesitation, this moment of doubt. They’re pulling up to the drive and he is saying   
“Of course CJ. You take whatever time… Find me in the morning.” He looks tired as he gets out the car and it’s only then that she really appreciates how tired she is. With the buzzing and the adrenaline gone, there is exhaustion. She should go to her office, get her scarf and whatever she got to pack before she went to the hospital, check there hasn’t been a nuclear disaster in Finland but there is exhaustion. So she turns on her heel and heads to her car. The exhaustion is telling her to go home. She doesn’t.

Toby is whiskey, and the sound of Virginia Woolf being read aloud and the feel of a tongue along her collar bone.   
When he answers the door he is on the phone. He only looks at her for a moment, almost quizzical but mainly unsurprised. She hates that about him, that nothing she ever does manages to surprise him. (And maybe she loves it too.) He retreats quickly, leaving the door open for her to follow. It’s late for him to be on the phone and CJ wonders if there really has been a nuclear disaster in Finland, she gets as far as reaching for her cell to see if she’s missed any calls but then he’s stopped talking and is looking at her again. She dumps her bag by the door and joins him, sat on the stools by the breakfast bar.   
“Disaster in Finland?” He shouldn’t understand this but he does somehow. Because he’s Toby and she’s CJ.   
“The twins. I was saying goodnight.”   
“It’s late for them to be awake, surely?” He looks down at his shoes, the way he does before he says something important.   
“I asked Andi to wake them up.” She waits for the explanation that’ll follow if she’s patient, and quiet, and still. He looks at her, and a hand rubs the side of his face   
“Just Leo at the hospital and I saw Mallory and I wanted to…” She wants to kiss the sadness out of him. To tell him that Leo is alive, that he is alive. That he is okay and his children are okay and that everything will be okay. She wants to let him bury his depression somewhere deep in her body. She wants to let him to fuck her. They do that sometimes, when big terrible things happen… or when small terrible things make them wish they were anyone but themselves, when they drink too much champagne and pretend they aren’t CJ Cregg and Toby Ziegler who work at the White House. Leo in hospital would count as a big terrible thing like Josh and the President in hospital counted as a big terrible thing. But she didn’t come here for that, not this time.   
“The President asked me to be his new Chief of Staff.” is what she blurts out. Even this doesn’t surprise him. He doesn’t look surprised, he looks faintly sick. He doesn’t say anything quick enough so she says it for him; “Well, gee, CJ, ain’t that super? Congratulations you talented, and might I say beautiful, woman you.”   
He smiles at her. It feels almost playful.   
“I would never use ‘gee’ as an exclamation.” She hits him on his knee. Her hand stays there, and squeezes gently.   
“That’s what you’re saying to me now?” When he stops smiling and doesn’t look at her, she moves her hand.   
“You don’t think I can do it. You wanted it to be Josh.” There is a pause. He looks at his shoes.   
“Toby.” Her voice manages to be both commanding and pleading and he looks up at once.   
“I wanted it to be Josh.” They hold each other’s gaze and she knows he means it. She doesn’t not which emotion is stronger; the hurt or the relief. He doesn’t think she can do this so she won’t. She goes to stand up, but their knees are too close together so she half stumbles up and he has to turn to face her now she is standing. She smooths her hands over her hair, paces and doesn’t look at him.   
“Okay. Okay. I only joined the campaign because you said you thought I could do it Toby. The only person who knows me better than you do can’t remember my name anymore and I’ve never been the best judge of my own capabilities. So if you don’t think I can do it, I probably can’t. So I’ll speak to the President tomorrow and advise he name Josh as Chief Of Staff. So that’s fine. That’s all I needed. I should - ” She’s turning away from him when his voices comes back at her small.   
“You could do it.” He’s stood up.   
“What?”  
“Be Chief of Staff. You’d be, mhm, you’d be perfect.”   
“Then why the hell.” Her pitch is higher than she’d like but she’s feeling pretty damn incredulous. “Is this a pride thing? Can you not stand working under me or something because seriously Toby,”   
“No, this, this isn’t a. Damn it CJ.” Toby is the only person she knows in the world who shouts slowly. “This is a Leo is lying in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of him thing, and Donna got blown up thing and Andie nearly fucking did too. And I’ve had to watch you through two shootings and a crazy stalker and your cat-like reflexes are pretty shitty CJ.” His voice reaches its maximum like it does when he’s reached his prize point. And somehow whilst he was shouting, he’s ended up in her face. He smells like whiskey, and it’s all anger and breath and if she’s going by memory and association, she should kiss him now. She wants him to kiss her. She steps backward instead,   
“That makes… that makes no sense Toby. As Press Secretary, I’m the second most visible person, as Chief Of Staff I would be so much more behind the scenes… not to mention the security detail we both know will be forced upon me. And like you just said, Donna got blown up. The ‘Deputy-Deputy-Chief of Staff’. Status doesn’t matter. If this is about my ‘safety’ which, we’ll get to how patronizing that is in a second, I’m not less safe as Chief Of Staff.”   
“Apart from the bit where that job is the reason Leo’s heart just stopped working.” He says it quietly and it catches her off guard. Leo. Ships in bottles. A bleeping monitor. (“A ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships were built for.”) She sighs and pulls up a chair at the kitchen table. There is exhaustion.   
“Toby, Leo’s heart stopped working because Leo hasn’t stopped working in forty years. And because before that he spent twenty years drinking himself to sleep.”   
“Yeah, and when did you last sleep?” She doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t answer him. Partly because it’s a stupid question but mainly because she can’t remember. He moves a chair next to her, so they’re knee to knee again.   
“I know you can do this. I know this you can do this well. I just want to know that you can do the job well and treat yourself well to. I just don’t… I can’t see another person in a hospital room. Let alone… I just want you to look after yourself.”   
“Should I eat salads?” A smile spreads beneath his beard and reaches his eyes. God, she loves him.   
“Look after yourself not torture yourself.” He says on a laugh.   
“You really think I can do this?” (Wet clothes. Sore eyes. Excitement.)   
“Yeah.”   
“Okay.” She smiles.   
“So, you going to?”   
“I’m not sure.”   
He’s studying her; “You gunna go wake up Sam in California and check he thinks you can do it too? Ask Donna’s cats?”   
“No. No, I just. There’s something I need to… There’s a thing.” He never asks her to say more, never pushes for more than she’s willing to give.   
“But if the thing works out?”   
“Yeah, if the thing works out.” They sit for a few moments. It’s late and she should leave but neither of them wants to say it. She should leave or she should stay but the implications of staying are too much to handle tonight.   
“Do you remember when you came with me to buy a coat? A winter coat for Washington.”   
“Because it’s cold in Washington. Yeah. I remember.”   
“That was nice of you, Tobus.” She leans over and kisses him, softly if not chastely. The kiss deepens and everything feels okay. He holds her face in his hands. When they stop, they don’t break apart but remain forehead to forehead.   
“Leo is going to be okay?” It’s meant to be a statement (she’s trying to comfort him, comfort them both) but it comes out like a question.   
“Yeah, he will.”   
“Okay.” She stands to leave and he follows her to the door. She retrieves her bag and turns to him. He tilts his head and smiles slightly before opening the door for her. She smiles back and only whispers the faintest of goodnights.

She waits in the outer office. She’s not normally near the Oval this early unless something has gone wrong, so Charlie looks concerned but he’s Charlie so he doesn’t ask. Instead he tells her that Deanna is doing a project of Jefferson for her history class and he’s too afraid to mention it to the President. “You just know he’s going to want to offer to go in with her for the class and give a lecture and Deanna would love it but I don’t know how the Joint Chiefs would feel about him missing a security briefing for a high school history class, you know?” He can always make her laugh. Charlie is laughter, crazy glue and something like honour.   
“CHARLIE!” The President is calling and Charlie half rolls his eyes before going inside.   
She’s alone for a minute but there’s no buzzing noise. She can do this.   
“He’s ready for you.” The President is stood behind his desk. She thinks if someone took a photo of him now, standing there with his brow furrowed as he reads briefing books, it would be one of the pictures at the center of his biography. She tries not to wonder if this conversation would be featured. She tries to avoid thinking about how they will all be written about in the future’s history books.   
“Good morning Sir.”   
“Good morning Claudia Jean.”   
“How’s Leo doing?”   
“Well. Abbey’s there at the moment with Jenny and Mal. He’s asleep but he’s doing well.”   
He walks around to the front of the desk and folds his arms. It’s only then that CJ realises that she’s still stood at the edge of the room.   
“How are you doing this morning?”   
“Fine, sir. Good. I’ve been thinking about our discussion last night.”   
“Well I was hoping you would have been.” There’s a small smile playing on his lips.   
“Well, sir, it was that or a Letterman re-run.” He laughs. She steps into the room and takes a breath. “I would be honored to accept the position as your Chief of Staff but before-“  
“Wonderful CJ. You’ll be brilliant, just brilliant. I’m so very proud. Would you like to call anyone and tell them?” He’s patting his pockets, looking for a cell. “Although I don’t actually carry a phone, Charlie does that. Do you want me to get him?” He’s walking towards the door, not really listening to her.   
“Sir –“ “We could call your father. I’m sure he has some pearls of wisdom to offer me from the world of mathematics and it's relation to the current economic crisis…”   
“Mr President!” She has to raise her voice slightly and he turns bemused.   
“Yes?”   
“Before I… There was something I needed to ask.”   
“I knew this was coming. Well, my wife knew… CJ, your secret service escort is non-negotiable, you know that. We can work with Ron to set up certain parameters with the agents if you..” She shakes her head, looking down and he stops.   
“No, sir. It isn’t that.” She isn’t sure how to do this, how to ask something that seems so silly now. But she needs to know, to clear it, to move forward. “When.” She stops and takes a breath, looks back up at him. “When the staff were told about your MS, I was the only one. I, mean, I was the only senior Whi- Leo told me. And I know it was a terrible time. We didn’t react well and there was re-election. But you didn’t tell me, sir, Leo did.”   
Her voice is doing that husky thing it does when her eyes are threatening to cry. Don’t CJ, don’t cry now.   
“You haven’t asked me a question, CJ.” His voice is soft and stern and fatherly. And maybe she should just call her father, maybe this shouldn’t worry her. But it does.   
“Why didn’t you tell me yourself? Sam, Josh, Toby. Just not me.”   
“I have an answer for you. You’re not going to like it. Abbey didn’t like it.” Abbey; arms sore from shopping bags, the taste corked wine, crying together about not-allergies.   
“I think I need to hear it.” He regards her for a moment before nodding. He moves to sit on one of the sofas and indicates for her to sit opposite him. This time their knees don’t touch.   
“When we got the diagnosis, Abbey and I struggled with what to tell the girls. They were so young and the disease seemed so far off that we almost didn’t tell them. But, you know, I couldn’t lie to them. Liz didn’t say much. She did the stoic thing. Zoey cried the most. Ellie holed up in Abbey’s office with her medical books and I remember finding her pouring over them, researching!” He almost laughs. “And when I saw her there, with all those books, she just looked up as said ‘I’m so sorry Dad’. Telling them was the hardest thing I’ve ever done… apart from maybe telling Toby.” They both smile now. They ignore the moisture in both of their eyes. “I was selfish in not telling you. But I’d already had to tell 3 of my daughters CJ, I didn’t want to put myself through that again.”   
The ramifications of what he’s saying to her settle. (“He thinks of you like a daughter.”) There’s always been this thing amongst them all, this family thing. Not always, maybe, but at some point in the campaign they began to joke about it. Leo and the Governor as Mom and Dad, Sam and Josh the two youngest sons, always in trouble and CJ the cool older sister. Toby was the curmudgeonly uncle. But then they were in the White House and there was another layer of respect added so they tried to stop referring to Leo with “Mom wants us downstairs”. But even without the jokes, it was always there. That love. (“You’re part of my family and this thing is happening and I simply won’t permit it.”) He thinks of her as his daughter. That’s why he couldn’t tell her himself. Not because she didn’t matter, but because she mattered too much. At first, she doesn’t know what to say. There’s too much to say and nothing that will come close to what she wants to say. She clears her throat slightly.   
“My father still hasn’t told me he has Alzheimers. It’s been almost two years. ”   
“Fathers and their daughters, CJ, fathers and their daughters.”   
“Sir, I… I really don’t know.” She wishes she was Sam, who open his mouth and manages to articulate everything anyone has ever thought. Or Toby, who can cross his hands across his chest and say so much.   
“You don’t have to say anything CJ.”  
“But I do, sir. Because that… it means everything to me. But, sir, from now there has to be…” (“I’m not your daughter, I’m the White House Press Secretary.”)   
“If... when I’m the White House Chief of Staff and you have to be able to tell me everything you need to.” It’s the first time she’s said that out loud and they both know it. (The moment almost feels biography worthy but she won’t think of that.)   
“Do you remember in Pittsburgh during the Campaign when you told me I was wearing two different shoes?”   
“Yes, Sir.”   
“I think we’re going to be just fine, Claudia. Now,” his voice is tender, “shall we go call your father?”   
“I should do it later, sir. Once I can check with my Step-Mother how lucid he is. Otherwise a call from the President might be a little confusing.” It’s sad but it’s funny too. The President is standing, so she is too. He shakes her hand.   
“Get senior staff in Leo’s office and we’ll tell them now. You start tomorrow.” (Breaks over.) As she leaves the Oval, Charlie goes in. (“Charlie, what’s next?”)

Maybe Toby will place a hand on her arm. Maybe her father will recognize her voice today. Maybe she’ll be brilliant at this. Maybe she’ll buy herself a new winter coat.


End file.
